So Paul Krugman wrote a column calling climate change-deniers treasonous:
And as I watched the deniers make their arguments, I couldn’t help thinking that I was watching a form of treason — treason against the planet.
…
Still, is it fair to call climate denial a form of treason? Isn’t it politics as usual?
Yes, it is — and that’s why it’s unforgivable.
Do you remember the days when Bush administration officials claimed that terrorism posed an “existential threat” to America, a threat in whose face normal rules no longer applied? That was hyperbole — but the existential threat from climate change is all too real.
Yet the deniers are choosing, willfully, to ignore that threat, placing future generations of Americans in grave danger, simply because it’s in their political interest to pretend that there’s nothing to worry about. If that’s not betrayal, I don’t know what is.
Krugman’s statement is stupid and hyperbolic (though he has good reason to be angry). John Cole has the correct reaction, so I don’t have much to say on that.
However, Jay over at LitW said this about Krugman’s column:
Of course, not quite understanding that Krugman was turning the right-wingers’ use of the word “treason” against them – pointing out the hypocrisy of an earlier, hyperbolic use of the term for a threat that wasn’t quite all that it was made out to be, by contrasting it with the same folks’ laconic attitude towards an all-too real and present catastrophic threat – naturally the usual people went completely bath*t.
You know, this is pure bullshit. Yes, maybe we can look at some who are in an uproar and go “Ha! You’re reaping what you’ve sown.” Fuck that. Krugman knows better. And liberals should know better than to defend him with sophistry. Treason should actually mean something and not be an empty political insult the way fascism is now.
People who aspire to be more than political hacks should be able to restrain themselves.
Jeff Environment, The Left
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